Episode 17 | Dr. Miriam Thaggert on Black Women and the Railroad

The railroad has long held a place in American mythos as the very representation of "progress," such as with westward expansion.

But in the years following Emancipation, Black women have long utilized the newfound technology to increase their mobility around the country. What were some of the inherent retaliations that Black women faced while riding and working the railroads during the Jim Crow era, and how do those same sentiments reverberate still today? Dr. Miriam Thaggert, Associate Professor of English at the University of Buffalo, joins Prof. Mark Anthony Neal to discuss her latest book, Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad, published by the University of Illinois Press.